Repetition

It's the second week of November, but it feels a little like Advent has already passed us by. Epiphany in the rearview mirror. January fully upon us.

Until I look back and remember that, year after year after year, there has been this slightly quirky intensity to the second week of November. Something more in the air than the hint of coming snow that the kids are buzzing with the possibilities of.

And, I don't pretend to understand this corporate repetition, the way that the same kids seem to engage in slightly-more-grown-up versions of the same behaviors that they used fifty-two weeks before.

But, it helps my pattern seeking brain to make a little more sense of the world.

Especially, when I am a part of it too. I ask *nn* to set something in our breakout room, and it isn't a box of pencils or a stack of index cards - some pieces of butcher paper to lay out and a bag of markers instead - but, her shoulders lift with the same pride, and it becomes so much more than simply a task completed well.

This is second week of November. This is connection.

The kid who walks in ahead of me, spots his friends, but then stops in the middle of the floor until I catch up. Waiting for me

The extra games of gaga ball.

The clumps of middle schoolers who sit together in a mixed up hodge podge of friends and families, more concerned with being together than anything else.

One girl holding her space in a group of boys. Eighth graders who want proof that I will separate them when they start kicking and punching at each other during the message.

An alter call and quiet prayers with quiet kids.

There are differences. We're not stuck in Groundhog Day, and I don't even register the similarities until I am looking for them.

But, as we split off into breakout groups and M*dd** and I glance over the edge of the balcony, checking on the boys, trying to figure out what's going on inside their heads, there are echoes, echoes of whatever this day is.

Echoes and precious time.

Because, the fifth grade girls feel brilliant when they figure out the connection between our activity and our verse; drop two packs of noodles into the donation barrel with quiet confidence; help with skits; play duck, duck goose; and don't bat an eye when I am busy helping littles find their small groups during music. But, complain emphatically when I leave right at the edge of service to help with shoeboxes.

They help me clean up our space, return my phone, and I slip away.

Carve out some margin that ends up being used for conversations with high schoolers in the hallway, as if a river of humanity isn't pressing past us as we talk about past, present, and future.

Skip the middle school leaders' meeting when the clock declares how late I am running, and just hang out with middle schoolers instead. Get in those extra games of gaga ball. Play a large game of something that involves testing the endurance of our crab walking skills.

Talk, as always, about past present and future. Enjoy my growing kids who still whisper vaguely connected stories during the talk and have to draw Crush the turtle beside the word "righteous" on our island hopping page, the girls responding in colored ink to the things that other people have written or drawn until we quickly overrun our allotted time.

Eat. Sleep. Pray.

Head back to the church for the youth pastor's final Sunday.

And, it is hoedown dancing to "Oh, Happy Day;" pulling in close to pray for the transition, for the old youth pastor, for whoever is coming next; gifts; stories; cake and ice cream; and leaders who linger through the clean-up, talking about used to be's and where they are now's

Because, there's not a script to this. But, the God who kept us before will surely keep us now.

We have the patterns to prove His faithfulness.